


Of Moons, Birds and Monsters

by Dolorosa



Category: Galax-Arena - Gillian Rubinstein
Genre: F/M, Missing Moments
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-22
Updated: 2012-07-22
Packaged: 2017-11-10 11:50:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/465950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dolorosa/pseuds/Dolorosa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I've always felt that Joella was too biased a narrator to truly understand the dynamics of the other <em>peb</em> in the Galax-Arena. This is partly because she simply wasn't there for most of the Arena's history, and partly because she liked and knew some <em>peb</em> better than others.</p><p>This, then, is an attempt to fill in some of the gaps about what happened before Peter, Joella and Liane were brought to the Galax-Arena, and in particular how Allyman and Presh's relationship developed.</p><p>The title is taken from the song 'Of Moons, Birds and Monsters' by MGMT. At one point, Presh quotes 'Remain Nameless' by Florence + The Machine. The rest of the words are my own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**I. Moons**

She had only survived long enough to see him arrive because she had rules, and she followed them:  
Know who holds the power  
Listen to them  
Always do what they want

Those rules had served her well in Guangzhou, and they served her even better in the Arena. She had listened carefully, fiercely, until she understood enough of the _patwa_ spoken by the other _peb_ \- not children, never children - to work out the rules of the place. She learnt the pecking order, arranging everyone into a kind of mental, unacknowledged hierarchy. She learnt what was wanted of her:  
Train hard in the Gymna  
Put on a good show  
Remain a child

(There was a fourth expectation, linked to the first three, that she refused to voice: _Risk your life, and die_.)

Making friends was not one of her rules. Friends tied you down, forced you to worry about something other than survival. Friends died.

~

He tumbled into the Gymna, all red hair and angry swearing and defiance, throwing a contemptuous look at Mihret, who was leading some of the younger boys in hand-balancing exercises. He turned back to whisper something and that was when she spotted the other boy, his knobbly-kneed, dark-eyed, nervous-looking shadow.

The other _peb_ flocked over, leaping and gesturing and flapping around, the way they always behaved with newcomers. She stayed where she was, before coolly continuing to climb the rope.

 _Allan - Allyman_ , she heard the red-haired boy say, introducing himself, and _Ashmaq_ \- gesturing at his companion. She was already high above them.

~

She had not, at that point, given anyone in the Arena her name, and she did not plan to. Hythe called her Birdie, because he had to call her something, and because she flew, and the other _peb_ called her nothing at all, and in any case, in the seven years she had been there - since she was five - they had come and gone in the flap of a pair of wings. (They didn't stop dying until six months later, when Leeward showed up, but that is another story.)

Allyman wouldn't let her namelessness rest. 

'What can I call you?' he asked her in the Gymna, a week or so after he arrived. 

She raised an eyebrow and then said, 'We need to practice using this new rope trapeze.'

'What can I call you?' he shouted across the room, Ashmaq at his side, as they scoffed down food packets after a training session.

'She doesn't give her name,' explained Sergei, who had been at the Arena for four months and would die less than a month later.

'What can I call you?' he asked, when he encountered her after a performance, adrenaline bands still on her wrists, the UV paint streaked and sweaty on her face, the scent of resin on her hands.

She stared out the window into the night sky.

It had been his first time in the Arena. Although it had not been Hythe's preference, Allyman had been matched with Ashmaq, flying between ropes and trapezes, and at one point tumbling through a giant metal wheel that was suspended in the air.

'What can I call you?' he asked again, his voice cracking slightly as he caught a glimpse of the starry sky. 

And she suddenly realised that he had not been asking for her name.

'You can call me what you want,' she said.

'Precious Flower - Presh,' he said. 

The twin moons of Vexak floated beneath their feet in the inky sky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While I only allude to it here, it's my opinion that Leeward would have viewed it as imperative to prevent as many deaths among the _peb_ as possible. So in my fic I have him working behind the scenes to forge unity and cohesion among the _peb_ , and to help them stay safe.
> 
> Mihret and Sergei are original characters. Their names - from Ethiopia and Russia - reflect the multicultural origins of the _peb_.


	2. Chapter 2

**II. Birds**

It would be impossible to explain the feeling of performing in the Arena to a person who wasn't of the _peb_. Just as the _peb_ spoke a different language - _patwa_ , which was at once no language and every language - so too did they have a different currency: agility, strength, athleticism, acrobatic skill. Youth. All these things were distilled and displayed to perfection in the Arena. In the hours before a show, those not selected to perform would whip themselves into an ecstatic frenzy, screaming, dancing, bouncing off the walls. Some of the performers would join them, but theirs was a more brittle form of ecstasy. Those who danced danced to forget, to get away.

Presh - the name had stuck - for her part did not want to forget. Every inch of her, every bone and tendon and synapse, was focused on the business of survival. She had no time for dancing.

~

One performance, after Leeward had arrived, but before Joella had been hauled off to the E and P level (the _peb_ had their own ways of measuring time), Presh was partnered with Allyman and Ashmaq. The boys flung her between themselves, and she dived through hoops that hung in the heights of the Arena. She preferred to work alone - less room for error - but what she preferred meant nothing to the Vexa, and so she was tossed like a doll between Ashmaq and Allyman's waiting hands.

And suddenly, Ashmaq's concentration slipped, and he lost his nerve. It was just for a split second, but if he had been holding her instead of Allyman, she would have died. If Allyman had not been hyper-aware of what was going on, if he had thrown her back to Ashmaq as the routine demanded at that moment, instead of flinging her upwards towards the netting that crisscrossed the ceiling, she would have died. She hung suspended, her hands and feet twisted into the ropes, as Allyman called out urgently to his friend, until Ashmaq began to slide down a rope, travelling towards the Arena's floor.

'We'll improvise!' Allyman shouted up to her. 'We can't finish this with Ashmaq, so we'll go on alone until the music stops.'

A part of her wanted to scream at him in outrage, ask him _how dare he_ make that decision on her behalf, and a part of her was already mentally modifying the routine to make it work with only one base instead of two.

'When you would have thrown me to Ashmaq, throw me to the roof,' she said, and leapt back down, trusting in his hands to catch her.

They flew.

~

When the show was over, they ducked past Hythe yelling at Ashmaq ('You're done! You're finished! Peter's going to take your place!') and swerved to avoid the onslaught of adoration from Liane and Fenja and deftly deflected Leeward's praise ('You both kept each other alive! See what happens when we work together?') and fell breathlessly into the sterile room that Allyman shared with Ashmaq and two other boys.

They kissed desperately, biting each others' lips in their haste to feel something, anything. Allyman was pulling her hair, twisting his fingers into it, gripping her arm so tightly that he would leave a half-moon of fingerprints indented in the flesh. She slid her hands under his costume, drawing him closer.

It wasn't joyful or beautiful or even particularly life-affirming. They were tense and angry and frightened and bewildered, and above all, they were a fourteen-year-old girl and a fifteen-year-old boy. They clung to each other to shut out the storm.

~

Some time later, Ashmaq fell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've rendered the dialogue in English because my attempts at writing _patwa_ looked very unnatural. Presh, Allyman and the others are of course speaking _patwa_ , so think of my dialogue as the equivalent of that between non-English-speakers in an English-language film.


	3. Chapter 3

**III. Monsters**

Allyman came barging into Presh's room, kicking out at the door frame angrily, almost tripping over Fenja and Liane, who were huddled on the floor, decorating their feet with UV paint. He overturned a jug of water and a stack of cups before Presh managed to get to him. She grabbed his arm and steered him out, past Fenja and Liane's curious glances, into a corner of the upper corridor which they knew from experience was a blind spot for the surveillance cameras.

Allyman was shaking, hyperventilating, balling his hands into fists.

'What are you _thinking_?' Presh asked him. 'Charging around like that? People will see!'

Allyman took a deep breath, as if he were gathering strength, and then said, 'This is Earth. We are still on Earth.'

And when she said nothing, he began to run, pulling her with him along the corridor until they reached the window that showed the night sky over Vexak. 

'Don't you understand? There is no Vexak, there are no Vexa.'

He put his hands on the window frame and pulled. There was a tearing sound, and then the screen was ripped from its socketes, to reveal an ordinary concrete carpark in the light of the early morning.

'We are still on Earth,' he repeated.

Presh stood. She stood, and she looked. Not turning back to face him, she said, 'Does it matter?'

~

'Hythe told me,' he whispered, some time later, when the two of them were sitting, huddled together under the broken screen. 

'He told me because he wants me to become like him. They'll put an implant like his in my arm.'

'And will you do it?' asked Presh, turning his hand over in her lap.

'He said Peter was already asked, that he'd already agreed,' said Allyman.

'And you are fifteen, nearly sixteen,' said Presh.

Like all _peb_ , they knew exactly what she meant by that.

~

When, at the next training session, Allyman and Peter took their places at Hythe's side, there was a ripple of shocked whispering. Presh ignored it, and started shepherding Fenja and Liane towards the aerial hoops. They had a new routine to learn.

Leeward, Seif and Arjun were gathered in a tight little huddle at the foot of the ropes. They muttered to one another and gestured emphatically.

'Hey - get to work!' shouted Hythe. He raised his own hand, and then changed his mind.

'Peter, deal with them!' he said.

'What, use this? On them?' Peter pointed at his implant, looking queasy.

'Of course! What do you think I mean - sit down with them for tea and biscuits?' asked Hythe scathingly.

Peter hesitated, and Allyman, making a sound of disgust, swept past him, arm raised. There was a buzzing in the air and the _peb_ clutched their heads in pain.

'Stop sitting around and start training!' shouted Allyman.

Presh hooked her arms around the hoop and began to spin.

~

She was the last to leave the Gymna that afternoon. As the other _peb_ filed out, she remained in the heights, sitting in the hoop as Allyman packed away blocks of resin down below. When they were alone, she dropped down with a somersault to land lightly beside him. She ran a finger down the silvery implant. It felt like plastic, but cool, like metal.

Neither of them said a word. She leaned into him briefly, and then he turned off the lights, and they stopped through the doorway, and into the harsh, fluorescent glow of the corridor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seif and Arjun are original characters.


End file.
